Newspapers

The Museum holds an extensive collection of Island newspapers.

The first local newspaper started in the 1930s, written by Will Whiting. In 1954 Jim Whistler and Trevor Nixon commenced the The Signal. This was hand typed and reproduced on a spirit and ink print press known as a Gestetner.  More recently the newspaper was reproduced with a photocopier machine. Jim had a break from September 1987 to October 1988 when Daphne Nichols produced a newspaper called Sailo.

Jim then again ran the The Signal until 2006 when Barney Nichols took it over and ran it until October 2014.  Then Stephen Sia took over its operation, using a team of local contributors.

The collection also includes many mainland newspaper and magazine clippings relating to Lord Howe Island.

The Museum received a grant from the Lord Howe Island Board to purchase a high speed scanner. In 2019 the entire collection of local Signal newspapers was scanned as searchable PDFs, enabling rapid search of names, words etc, and these are available in the museum on computers and iPad for residents, visitors and researchers.

John Borthwick

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